Murcia and Spanish news round-up week ending 2nd February 2018

Snow in the Costa Cálida, Mar Menor protection measures stiffened and further progress towards the opening of Corvera airport

The wintry weather which had been forecast duly arrived in Murcia last Saturday evening, and in the course of 18 hours or so left snowy scenes in the north and north-west of the Region and significant rainfall in almost all areas of the Costa Cálida.

Rain and snow bring only slight drought relief: The rain and snow which fell in the Region of Murcia on Sunday sent the January precipitation figures up above the historical average for the first month of the year, but no significant effect on the amount of water in the reservoirs of the Segura basin has yet been seen.

The monthly rainfall total averaged 44 millimetres in Murcia, which is not much, but the historical January average is only around 20 millimetres so the month will officially be classified as being “very wet”. But the immediate effect was an increase of just6 cubic hectometres in the Segura basin’s water reserves, with reservoirs still at only 15.4 per cent of capacity.

Nonetheless, there are grounds for optimism that the figure will rise further over the next week, with much of the meltwater from Sunday’s snow still to make its way into the reservoirs and more rain over the first few days of February.

In an eventful parliamentary session the first vote actually ended in a tie, as a Podemos MP had temporarily left the chamber to seek a glass of water, proceedings were resumed and the amendments were all passed, with none of the modifications suggested by the PP incorporated.

As a consequence, over the next three years the total area of agricultural land on which hedgerows must be planted and other measures implemented to prevent the runoff of harmful substances into the Mar Menor is approximately 131,000 hectares (or 1,310 square kilometres), and angry farmers complain that they and they alone are being held responsible for the deterioration of the water quality in the Mar Menor. They claim that the strengthened legislation could cost them around 500 million euros to implement.

Another box was ticked on the path towards the opening of Corvera airport on Wednesday when the new management company was officially inscribed on the Mercantile Register, and although the inauguration of flights at the terminal is a long way off it appears that a taxi war is already brewing at the airport! Drivers from both Murcia and San Javier stake their claims for what they anticipate will be a very lucrative “patch”, with differing estimates being put forward of how many licences should be issued at the airport.

But arguably the biggest tourism news of the week was the confirmation of another record year for the international tourism sector in Spain, with more visitors from abroad spending more money than ever before in this country, and the UK playing a lead role in those records being achieved: see the Spanish news summary below for more details…

Other news in Murcia this week

“Gorrilla” illegal car park attendants targeted by Google Maps users and the Murcia police: January saw a sharp rise in the number of car park attendant fines issued in Murcia, the figure of 264 being almost double the monthly average during 2017. This news followed an incident earlier in the week when tree branches and knives were used as weapons by two “gorrillas” in a Murcia street fight, as the unofficial attendants fought over a patch near the city centre.

La Unión man arrested after driving with his feet! The offender refused to toe the line regarding the use of mobile phones by drivers, but the local police were hot on his heels…

HIV self-diagnosis tests now freely available from chemists throughout Murcia: 18 per cent of HIV carriers in Spain are thought to be undiagnosed, and the aim is to remedy this situation and encourage early diagnosis for effective treatment.

9 Labrador puppies buried alive in Mula: three members of the same family are under investigation after two of the litter survived due to the prompt actions of neighbours who had been keeping an eye on the new-borns.

Murcia health minister vows to fight smoking on the beaches: 28 per cent of adults in Murcia currently smoke, but the regional government has set the ambitious target of reducing the figure from 340,000 to just 60,000 by the year 2025, partly by designating non-smoking beaches in the Costa Cálida.

Murcia and Spanish property news

Data published on Tuesday seem to suggest that despite the low interest rates and attractive fixed rate mortgage deals currently available in Spain more and more purchases are being made either in a one-off payment from savings accounts or by means of the sale of another property.

In Murcia, despite November sales having risen by 16 per cent the number of new mortgages registered in the month is reported to have fallen by 12.7 per cent, and similar results are reported in the whole of Spain: sales in the penultimate month of 2017 showed a double-digit increase, but mortgage activity showed a 3.7 per cent year-on-year fall in Spain. Again the picture is a similar one in the Costa Blanca, and it seems from these data that during November at least cash was King in the Spanish real estate market!

On the other hand, both in Murcia and in Spain the year-to-date mortgage figures are higher after 11 months of 2017 than they were the year before, by 4.8 per cent and 10.4 per cent respectively.

Meanwhile, two separate sources reported property price rises in the Region of Murcia during 2017: in terms of new-builds leading valuation firm ST observed a minimal 0.8 per cent rise, while in the second-hand market prominent portal Fotocasa reports an average increase of 2.6 per cent over the year. This is encouraging news, although far less spectacular than the appreciations in values which are reported in Catalunya, Madrid and the Balearic and Canary Islands!

Finally, it appears that the increase in property sales is gradually leading to a construction sector revival in Murcia and Spain: it is very hard to assess the degree to which the rising demand for residential property in Spain is contributing to a revival in the construction sector of the national economy, as to a certain extent that demand is catered for by second-hand homes coming onto the market, but the latest data relating to building licences suggest that the number of new properties being built is increasing significantly.

The latest figures show that in the first eleven months of the year the number of new homes for which licences were granted in the whole country was 26 per cent higher than in 2016, while in Murcia the increase was 14 per cent.

Spanish news round-up: record tourism figures last year while the political crisis in Catalunya takes more bizarre turns

As has become customary, the political turmoil and confusion in Catalunya has again dominated the front pages over the last few days, but before attempting to make sense of the ever more bizarre situation there it’s worth highlighting the final official figures relating to international tourism in Spain last year, which were published on Thursday.

Despite the first year-on-year decrease in visitor numbers for a long time in the month of December (mainly due to Catalunya attracting 14 per cent fewer visitors), new annual records were posted both for the number of people coming to Spain from abroad and for the amount of money they are calculated to have spent while in the country. Almost 81.8 million visitors spent 86.82 billion euros during the year, following increases of 8.6 per cent and 12.2 per cent respectively, and to put that into numbers which are more easily grasped, the spending equates to 238 million euros per day, or ten million euros per hour!

It almost goes without saying that the single most important source of visitors was the UK, which provided 18.78 million tourists, almost 23 per cent of the overall figure, and while the next most important markets were those of France and Germany, in terms of English-speaking nations it is interesting to note that there were significant increases in the numbers of visitors from both the USA and the Republic of Ireland. In addition, the number of visitors from Scandinavia rose by 14.2 per cent, and their spending in this country matched that of the French.

But nothing, it seems, can oust Catalunya from the top of the Spanish news these days, and this week the central figure is still a man who is most remarkable by his absence from the region. Carles Puigdemont remains in “exile” in Belgium, although his face is seen on video links at conferences, on the front pages of newspapers and even on the entrance flaps of the tents in which separatists spent Tuesday night outside the regional parliament in Barcelona, hoping against the odds that he would be re-appointed president of the Catalan government in his absence.

This was followed on Wednesday morning by reports that Sr Puigdemont may be ready to throw in the towel, a theory based on the snaps taken by a photographer standing behind his colleague Toni Comín while he read text messages thought to have been sent by the former president.

In the meantime, the Guardia Civil have reported that the separatist government led by Carles Puigdemont intended to form a 22,000-strong Catalan army in order to defend their republic against attacks from Spain!

But the final word goes to the Chief Travel Writer of the Sunday Times, who has been subjected to a ferocious backlash from Spanish readers after a light-hearted article in which he portrayed the stereotype of the typical Spaniard. Angry readers failed to see the funny side as he highlighted their loudness, bad language, lateness and fondness for very long lunches, although on the other hand at least one Spanish newspaper admitted that Mr Haslam is right in advising readers to take their mobile phones to restaurant toilets “because every motion-activated toilet light on the Iberian peninsula is programmed to go out after four seconds”!

For more on these and other stories scroll down below…

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